Linux GPU Performance

CrzyP writes "AnandTech.com has benchmarked the most popular graphics cards from ATI and NVidia on the Linux OS (SuSE 9.1). It is interesting to see that they have also written a custom benchmarking tool which can also be downloaded from the article. Take a look at Kristopher Kubicki's "Linux 3D AGP GPU Roundup" to see how each of the mid to high end cards performed on the Penguin flavored system."

Comments

ATI vs nVidia

[Eeknay]

Wow, this is very surprising. One would expect with similar Windows benchmarks for the X800 to be matching or beating the 6800 Ultra (depending on drivers of course), so these low X800 scores in Linux really are quite a shock.

Re:ATI vs nVidia

[Tumbleweed]

If low-performing Linux ATI drivers are a shock to you, you haven't been paying attention for a few years. :(

...vs. same cards with Windows?

[TrollBridge]

Those numbers are all well and good, but I'd be interested in seeing them side-by-side with the same tests performed (on the same machines, of course) running Windows.

Better drivers and licensing please

[Handbrewer]

The situation right now is quite frustrating - all distributions should be able to ship the binary drivers for the vendor kernel. It would make it so much easier, than having to get the kernel source and headers before building the module on your own. Thats an unneccesary burden only placed on our shoulders because of some paperwork. 2nd, id like some better drivers please, the ATI drivers are terrible, please stop treating me as a second rank costumer. My money is as good as anybody elses. Thanks so far NVIDIA, now we just need a better license.

Re:Better drivers and licensing please

[danheskett]

Your money is not as good as everyone elses.

90%+ of the market is Windows. To support your 10% slice of the market is vastly more expensive per sale.

Look at this way. If developing, optimizing, and supporting the drivers for a new line of cards was equally as expensive for Linux as for Windows, at say, $1M USD, and the card was expected to sell 10M units, and 90% of the customers are Windows users or OEMS who sell only Windows, then you are looking at a per-unit cost to develop that Windows driver of about $0.11 USD. For the 10% of Linux users, the cost per unit-sold is $1 USD.

Those are assuming all things are equal. I'd wager that for any given company, developing the Windows drivers, including packaging, tweaking, etc is much easier. Add in that Microsoft through its Windows Harward Quality Labs (WHQL or whatever they call it now) basically will subsidize your development costs, I'd imagine that the cost ratio is not 1:1 but much leaner in favor of developing Windows drivers.

So the bottom line is that, in any company, you try to maximize your profitable customers and ditch your unprotifable customers. If the Linux drivers cost only $2 per unit in volume for each sale generated where as the Windows drivers cost only pennies on that dollar, you have a big problem. Over time ATI and nVIDIA sell an awful lot of chips to OEMs and other re-branders who pay very little for hardware. If you are selling chips at $40 (my guess is that this is a high number.. your typical 800-1000 laptop doesn't cost more than 500-600 to build, and most of that goes to Intel/AMD, Micron for RAM and Samsung for LCDs) a unit that $2 cost is suddenely a huge, huge problem.

Of course these numbers are made-up out of broad cloth. But the ratios are real. Linux drivers would have to cost 10 times less to develop to make you an "equal" customer as a Windows customer.

In fact, you are lucky to get anything from nVIDIA or ATI.

Linux Gaming, In Summary

[TrollBridge]

From TFA:

"High performance gaming on Linux certainly isn't for everyone. We spent weeks preparing for this analysis and we still ran into problems that we could not correct. So many times, we came to a solution for a problem only to find our Linux distribution had some files in a slightly different place or our file dependency tree was completely broken. These are the things that scare away people from Linux."

That is the 100% gospel truth. I couldn't have said it better myself. How then will the Linux community and game publishers overcome this (IMHO) enormous obstacle?

Re:Linux Gaming, In Summary

[danheskett]

Part of the problem is the flexibility that Linux affords.

A highly-componentized system is great for flexibility, but a nightmare for usability and developers.

Microsoft's big-man has a penchant for screaming "Developers Developers Developers", but's he right. Developing a graphics intensive app on the Microsoft platform is a different ball of wax completely from developing on a *nix machine. DirectX works well enough that the developer is able to focus on developing things that add value to their product. There is a lot of that coming from the SDL camp, but truth be told DirectX is a success in the Windows world because of the underlying architectural differences: DirectX being install is a boolean operation: installed or not. (Well, now actually its actually a matter of versions.. all Windows distros have it.. so its just a matter of what version you want to deal with).

Windows has a great success at offering games and graphics heavy packages because of the broad hardware support, the straightforward development model for drivers and the resources MS provides for brand-name developers, and the unified relentless promoting and development of DirectX as a platform.

Re:Linux Gaming, In Summary

[Kethinov]

First off, a wide range of apps already runs on Linux. I don't have a problem using it as my desktop OS, nor does anyone else I know once you factor out the difficulty of installing, which is negligible. In fact, my computer illiterate anti-technology parents don't have a single issue using pre installed Linux. It's all the same to them. Click icon here, browse web. Click icon there, read email. Click icon up there, play solitaire.

"Oh, but you maintain it for them!"
Sure I do. But I'd be doing the same damn thing if they ran Windows. Except then I'd be scanning for viruses, removing spyware, etc. There's really no difference.

As for consistency, that's a mute point. There already is a huge number of statically compiled apps which run in any distro. And apps that aren't are provided by your distro's package manager. Why is consistency even an issue at this point? Because you want a ubiquitous distro? Sure, that'd be nice but the world doesn't work that way atm.

If you're talking about ease of use and installation, I'll have sympathy for you. But once installed, the Quake3 tastes just as sweet. All it needs is a little popularity and the real world performance materializes nicely. Stuff like that is proof that Linux IS ready for the desktop and that people are just unwilling to change due to some legacy nonported application or just their unwillingness to learn something new.

To such people I say "what do you really need windows for?" In most cases the answer is nothing except proprietary games. In which case I convince them that games are not as important as running a proper and moral OS (in the sense of free and open as well as unpirated), or I at least encourage them to dual boot. (Even I do that.)

Besides, Linux gets more games all the time. There are only TWO games left that necessitates my windows install. When I stop playing them or they are ported, I will never maintain a windows install again.

You say Linux needs consistency to be a successful desktop OS and I say it needs time. I'm switching people. Friends of mine are switching people. Convincing people to drop the MS monopoly like the bad habit it is is a painfully one-person-at-a-time process.

But each person is worth it.

What's the beef with rebooting?

[poohsuntzu]

I don't get why some users complain about rebooting, linux and windows alike. In a company/mission critical server type situation I could see it, but for home use? My Windows XP machine takes a total of 20 seconds to shut down, pass BIOS, reboot, and hit the desktop ready to work. In that twenty seconds (which mind you, isn't very long to begin with) I can actually do that thing we forget to do, and stretch my legs and arms. Grab a cup of water, hell.. even look out the window.

The same with my slackware machine. About 25-30 seconds for a reboot. None of that bothers me because I -know- 30 seconds on my home machine doesn't mean a damn thing. I'll enjoy that time to rub my eyes, refresh myself with maybe spending that 30 seconds taking all the dishes out of the room back up to the kitchen.

Don't treat 30 seconds as a long and unbearable time unless you want to start complaining about having a manually flushing toliet in your home, followed by hands that can't wash themselves.

Why Linux sucks

[Animats]

Enabling 3D acceleration (DRI) still needs to be done manually by editing the /etc/X11/XF86Config file after running the SaX2 utility. Enabling FSAA must be done by editing the XF86Config file by hand as well (see our AA/AF section for details). After a little more than 8 hours of playing with configurations, we hit paydirt.

Any questions?

This binary driver thing has got to go. As Linux gains desktop market share, pressure will increase to open up the hardware interface to the driver. It's not like hooking OpenGL to the card involves any technology that isn't well known in the industry.

Re:Proprietary driver hell

[cowbutt]

I still don't understand why people bash Nvidia because of the binary drivers they provide. In spite of Linux being low on the desktop count, Nvidia is nice enought to provide current drivers for all of their latest cards. They were quick to support the 2.6 kernel. If the driver works and works well why does it matter whether it's open or not?

Oh, little things, like the reassurance of being able to continue to use the hardware I've paid for even if nVidia don't feel like continuing to develop the drivers if-and-when the kernel API changes - like with the recent 4k stacks issue. That, and Free drivers are more stable that proprietary drivers in my experience, and when they aren't, you can look at the code to try to figure out why, rather than crossing your fingers and waiting for a driver update that may never come.

--

Re:Proprietary driver hell

[brunes69]

Oh, little things, like the reassurance of being able to continue to use the hardware I've paid for even if nVidia don't feel like continuing to develop the drivers if-and-when the kernel API changes

Yeah. You mean like my Zoran TV tuner card that hasnt worked since the 2.2 series, despite their being public specs and sources for it? Drivers are only maintained as long as the developer is around. And unless you have the skills to write your own drivers (and most of us, including large numbers of application developers, *don't*), the having specs/source or not is irrelevant.

...like with the recent 4k stacks issue...

You mean the "issue" that nvidia had *working drivers* for within weeks after it was *even an option* in the kernel? You mean the "issue" that "open" drivers like *ahem* ATI have and NVidia does not?

That, and Free drivers are more stable that proprietary drivers in my experience, and when they aren't, you can look at the code to try to figure out why

Again. you are in the vast minority in being able to do this. So don't bash NVidia for catering to the rest of us.

Open your wallet

[anti-NAT]

You mean like my Zoran TV tuner card that hasnt worked since the 2.2 series, despite their being public specs and sources for it? Drivers are only maintained as long as the developer is around. And unless you have the skills to write your own drivers (and most of us, including large numbers of application developers, *don't*), the having specs/source or not is irrelevant.

Why not offer to pay an open source developer to update it ? At least you have that option, independent of the manufacturer's support for doing so.

You going to have the same problem with Linux kernel version 4.0, when Nvidia don't provide a driver for their XYZ card in 2010. Problem is, at that time, you won't have access to the specs, so you won't even have the option of paying an open source developer to update the driver for you.